


After-Dinner Cocktails

by ScarlettsLetters



Series: Fumbling Towards Ecstasy [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Blow Jobs, Bucky Barnes-centric, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Domestic Fluff, Flirting, Hand Jobs, M/M, Oral Sex, Romantic Fluff, Shrunkyclunks, shrunky clunks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 18:29:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13886610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettsLetters/pseuds/ScarlettsLetters
Summary: For as long as he can remember, Steve's wanted to lay Bucky out and bury his cock in that warm, perfect mouth. Tonight, he finally gets what he waited for.





	After-Dinner Cocktails

**Author's Note:**

> Steve Fucking Rogers is flirting with him. 
> 
> In fact, has been flirting with him for the better part of thirty minutes in that earnest, friendly way. A series of brilliant tactical maneuvers using his comfort with his environment against him, and now Bucky's pinned to the bar while America’s hero licks wine off his finger. Maybe Steve has been watching too many music videos on YouTube to get these kinds of ideas. If so, Bucky won't complain.

The club is a sanctuary. Everyone has their secrets under a shared rosy camaraderie. His boss is the prince of Asgard, two bartenders sense imminent death, and a bouncer might be a reformed demon. Here, no one cares who Bucky is, or bats an eye at the metal prosthetic arm when he gets out of the suit he tends the bar in, in favor of t-shirt and jeans to do the clean up and prep.

So there's never any complaining from J. B. B. when it comes to doing whatever dirty work -- anything is better than the old days in the Army, before Steve. No sand fleas, no Germans shooting at him, no icy desert nights. Let alone the horrors the Russians subjected him to. Rounds of home to work and back again, unwilling to be out on the streets longer than need be.

Things are starting to look up for once, especially when his phone blinks to life.

 _4:32 AM: Pick you up after work? The office is starting to feel pretty empty_.

Only Steve Rogers sends properly punctuated and grammatically correct text messages. Bucky holds the smartphone in too firm a grip to be safe, the case flexing in protest. It’s four-thirty in the morning and Steve, by rights, ought to be fast asleep in that fancy apartment his status as saviour of the free world and century-old vet affords him. How should he respond? Biting his lip, Bucky worries at the inner corner while staring at the glossy screen. He starts to write an answer and wipes it out, putting down the phone to return to his previous task.

He sorts recipe cards by ingredients on the bartop, trying to come up with a more efficient system of reference, for himself at least. Type of main liquor? Alphabetized by obscure ingredient?

If he doesn’t hurry up, he will miss out on the opportunity. Hell, Steve might be sitting up in bed looking for an excuse to fly the coop and here he is, organizing lined cards nervously to keep his hands busy.

When he checks the phone, he finds two more messages waiting for him.

_4:46 AM: You can say no if you’ve got plans or busy with work. Didn’t want to sound pushy._

As if Steve is ever pushy. He stifles a snort. It’s so easy to imagine Steve in his t-shirt and shorts, sitting in the darkness of his bedroom, and punching messages off between bouts of reading.

_4:49 AM: I’ll be up for a while yet. Let me know. Have a great night._

Anyone else, the words might come off with a buried note but not the golden boy. Bucky moves aside a stack of ordered cards he has to review again, as if he can remember how he started.

 _4:53 AM: I finish up at 5:15. Come on down. I’ll make you breakfast_.

Bucky checks himself twice and presses the send button, firing off the digital messages into the abyss.

He ends up waiting no more than two minutes for the verification.

_4:55 AM: You don’t have to do that, but thank you for the thought. See you then._

Anticipation starts to bubble beneath his chest. Nothing special about Steve dropping by Greenwich Village except he’s not the kind of guy to take in a show or get a drink. Sometimes he slips in to catch up with Thor, but he and Bucky prefer to meet up under more incognito circumstances. Usually that means a shawarma restaurant close to Bucky’s place, nothing fancy.

Back to sorting cards, since he can hardly watch the clock on his phone until Steve is standing amused on the landing, calling his name. An idle task done well, and he's humming to himself under his breath.

That and a few last touches, then he’ll be ready to go. He grins to himself while turning to rummage through a drawer hidden under the granite bar.

 

* * *

 

Thor gave pass cards and keys to all the Avengers back when he opened the club, so any of them can slip in through a side door while the rest of the Village slumbers.

Steve’s as good as his word, following the main hall out to the sunken floor. In jeans and a t-shirt, he looks casual rather than a refugee from last call, his brown leather jacket slung over his shoulder. Bucky glances up while catching him taking in the ambiance.

“This is really something,” Steve murmurs, still craning his head. “Quite the special occasion. What did I miss?”

“Nothing much,” Bucky says, buffing up the bar with a soft chamois cloth. A lie, of course, since he spent the last ten minutes pulling together a few finishing touches.

The club carries a certain exotic element, a feeling better linked to the mysteries of the Near East souks awash in rare spices, bright metals, and heady resins. A caged Turkish lantern sits upon a countertop, squat and angular, candle ablaze within throwing a tarnished copper light. The sensual elixir spills through the warm air, a trace of myrrh lingering beneath the spicy notes. A heady brew steeps in the corner on a hot plate, occasionally bubbling, red wine with a fat, rolled stick of actual cinnamon leaning against the pot.

All the intentions for companionship for a day's beginning and a night's end draw Steve a little further in. In the quietest twilight, he is at his most reflective. “You know, he’s really done something impressive with the place.”

Bucky doesn’t smile, but his voice radiates a quiet pride of place. “It’s hard work but I like to think it shows. Do you want a drink?”

At the offer, Steve hesitates. They both don’t get a buzz from the alcohol for more than a few moments as their systems process the alcohol too efficiently.

He approaches the bar and settles on a stool, laying his coat neatly over the next one. A book pokes out from the pocket, just part of the blue spine visible. “You sure? You just finished cleaning up, I don’t want to make you wash everything again.”

Bucky tries not to roll his eyes and barks a low chuckle. “I promised you breakfast, consider it part of the bargain. A quick drink, no harm.”

Steve reluctantly nods. “How about one of those herbal drinks, if it’s no trouble? I’ve watched Thor put too many vets under the table with those Asgardian meads of his.” He cringes at the statement. "What about that one Nat likes? Do you have tuberose? Maybe violet makes a better substitute."

He glances up at that. "Out of that, other than the wax. There's that one lady who has a thing for it, and she was in a couple of times tonight." Someone regal and dark, in that 'somewhere from around the Mediterranean' way. The scent seems to please him, as all the pleasant ones do. Since working at the club, Bucky has far more of an opinion on such things. Blame a good deal of that for him quitting smoking entirely. "We've got violet, but it's low. All that's left of the rose is the Bulgarian stuff. The Moroccan ran out last night."

"Wax isn't particularly edible." Scraping his thumbnail along his hairline, Steve dislodges several errant strands that sweep in a wave along his brow. He looks between the two pages of the book, flipping them back and forth, revealing a procession of shapes stamped in odd rows. Not Latin alphabet or Cyrillic, but rather hooks and triangles and meandering lines imprinted in neat, ready columns. "Nat’s always raving about the Moroccan rose, so whatever you recommend. What goes best? I wouldn’t want something too sweet with the honey."

He drops the book off on the countertop away from where Bucky orders the cards, eyes narrowed slightly while taking in his casual attire, the casual stance, the looseness of poise and position. All might be well.

"Well, we've got the order in," Buck says, as he riffles through the cards, fingers deft. Even the metal hand seems to have no trouble. And he can, bizarrely enough, write just as well with it. An induced ambidexterity, perhaps. "For both the tuberose and the Moroccan. No date yet, I think we’re trying to finagle someone new as a source." A glance over at the hot plate, and he stifles a grin. "There’s always mulled wine? What’s that you’re reading, anyway?"

Then he sets down the cards and goes to get the empty containers, the better to scrub them out in preparation for the next batch. No shyness in Steve's presence, no embarrassment. Nevermind the marks in the bricks of the hallway, it's as if he's managed to submerge any mortification of his previous adventures in the club his best friend knows nothing about. Bucky hopes.

"I trust your judgment. I’ll pass on the wine, though.” Steve taps the book shut and turns up that bashful smile. "That? Bedtime reading material.” A little more serious, he turns the volume around to display a round, chipped photograph of a stone disk stamped in archaic writing. “It’s about untranslatable records from a ruined city called Zakros. The stone tablets come from the Late Minoan. Banner says we need to search them for a reference before our next mission, but if you ask me, he just wants us to find an ancient Minoan drink to put on the menu. How would we ever know?"

“You even speak that?” Bucky raises his eyebrows a tad. He turns to the glass shelves and pulls down unidentified vials, stopped in wax, feeling a little like a mad scientist about to pour chemicals into a beaker to impress the girls. Or his best guy, in this case.

“Not a chance. He drew some of the symbols for me, though, and I can look for them.”  He thumbs the page and follows a circular rotation in the middle, the only break in the columns. "Maybe the secret is cedar sap. Couldn’t tell you what ingredients are necessary to turn Asgardian cocktails into rocket fuel. We couldn’t possibly be looking for venom.”

Bucky nods at the book. “Don’t look at me. I don’t read dead languages.”

"I’ll call you if your boss starts mixing up any special punch. I recall you have a taste for rum," Steve says, gently ribbing the soldier behind the bar. Word gets around on the team, even if they don’t have the full story. "Maybe I ought to make you the taster, and configure my recipe accordingly."

There's the blush springing into being. Bucky almost fumbles a vial of rose cordial. "Well, I'm not really a good gauge for how ordinary humans are going to react," he says mildly, as he scours out a jar. There's the heady scent of taif rose in the air; it'll need soaking with alcohol to remove it. "Though I'm happy to offer my opinion on the taste." Pink to the ears, he doesn’t meet Steve’s blue eyes. "It was a good rum," he adds, voice inconsequential.

Steve laughs. That sound is so warm and unexpected, for Bucky it sounds like the anthem of sunrise breaking with the first tidy rays limning the eastern horizon in a fairer share of indigo where the predominant effect is otherwise ultramarine to black. "I wouldn't serve this to ordinary humans. Just Thor." He shakes his head, again dislodging more of his hair from its somewhat contained coif, the unruly wave defeating even gel. "Or humans, as a rule. For all I know, his recipe would get anyone who drank it high as a kite. I can’t risk that happening." Silence settles in as he leans against the bar. "So there’s cream and violet base, but cream and honey? I’m not quite sure that’s an actual drink."

"I dunno. Probably tastes fine," Buck says, as he looks down at the jar he's working on. "So far's I know." The idea of it not being served to ordinary humans makes him smirk a little. "That's encouraging since I can't get drunk on the ordinary stuff. I like violet and honey, but then I like anything sweet" The chime of metal knuckles against glass settles, and he tries to keep his gaze down to keep from staring at Steve.

Something indulgent about watching the blond outside the training room or in the field on a mission, wrapped up in a plain white t-shirt and those jeans instead of a stealth suit emblazoned by the telltale harness and the silver star. Getting caught staring would be awkward, so he slaps a towel down while looking at the drinks.

“To be honest, I don’t know what to drink.” Steve grins a little, waving a hand. “You ever get inventive, mix up something that has a real hit? Imagine the cellar has some fancy options.”  

The wine bubbles away on the hot plate, not quite up to a full boil. Close enough the steam builds up in a heavy cloud, fragrant on the air. He slides off the stool and heads around the bar, pushing past Bucky, and the brush of hip to side is far from accidental. The way he moves in combat, never putting a foot wrong, impossible to imagine he wouldn’t mean to brush up against the bartender’s side and scour his knuckles along a flank. Rescuing the mulling collection means spinning the cinnamon stick around in three sharp turns, releasing the brilliant bouquet of spices to the nose in an even stronger profusion. Heady, that.

Enough of a burgundy perfume laces the air to make Bucky’s nostrils flare at the scent, eagerly. "This place serves drinks no one else on this planet'd have, I bet." Satisfied with the state of the jar, he sets it aside to dry, submerges another in the soapy water. The question makes him pause. Steve can see that almost listening air come into his posture, hands in the suds. The brush past him keeps him alert, staring at the popping bubbles.  "This is the one place I can actually *get* drunk," he says, wryly. "Without buying a whole bathtub full of liquor, or worrying I'll wake up dead or in a cell. Let me think about what we’ve got."

The place is quiet enough to leave him thinking, cautious. Steve’s gaze darts right to left. No one else is in the club, the last of the valkyrie staff long since abandoning their duties for proper sleep or post-revelry revels. "Maybe something that leaves you inebriated, unable to see straight, much less stand?"  
  


Fingers release the cassia stick and he cleans one digit free of the burgundy by licking from knuckles to nail, eyes reduced to glittering cerulean crescents. Moments slip past, uninterrupted.

Distracted by that change, Bucky lets go the jar he's scouring. There's only a gentle clink as it sinks to the bottom of the basin. It can soak. "Half a bathtub of the hard stuff might be enough." Then he blinks. Words go to ash on his tongue. It's harder to think, now. And he hasn't even rum to blame. Trying to concentrate, he turns back to his work. He manages, after a beat or two. But the flush is still visible on his throat, as he fishes in the water for the jar.

Slowly but surely the math is adding up, the calculations slotting into place. He nearly drops the glass in the sink, hardly daring to breathe. Bad enough his fingers tap a tattoo against the metal basin, muffled clinks where stray tremors pass up and down the prosthetic arm.

Steve _Fucking_ Rogers is flirting with him. In fact, has been flirting with him for the better part of thirty minutes in that earnest, friendly way. A series of brilliant tactical maneuvers using his comfort with his environment against him, and now he’s pinned to the bar while America’s hero cleans wine off his finger. Maybe Steve has been watching too many music videos on YouTube to get ideas.

Excuses give him a second to put his disjointed thoughts together and ignore the building buzz somewhere below his beltline.

Steve stretches out his arms over his head, for the inevitable reorientation of his physique requires certain accommodation. The shirt he wears clings to the concave pull of his ribs to the terrain of his abdomen, the hemline retreating up to bare the jeans not unlike the shade of the night sky. When he brings his arms down, he accidentally knocks aside a bowl laced with crumbled alpine flowers, an addition to a tea occasionally used as a base for some cocktail or another. And over they go, the whole dish crashing to the floor.

The sound of the bowl tumbling has him turning back already. No scolding for the mess - it's Steve's place, he can wreck it if the whim takes him. A scatter of flowers is no great chore to clean up. He's already drawn off the rubber gloves.

“Sorry about that, Buck.” They move in synchronicity. Expression mildly startled, Steve reaches out for the bowl and brushes down Bucky's spine. Accidental, purely.

The brush of fingertips brings him to an abrupt halt, expression more than a little thrown off-kilter. Warmth in those digits tickles and it feels amazingly like nothing else. He stands there for a few beats, before remembering himself enough to try and stoop for the bowl. At least it was enameled metal; no shards to gather up.

“You okay?” Bucky asks. He cannot be sure whether he’s asking about the fallen bowl or a state of mind.

They both hold still as the moment grows and stretches, threatening to pass. Its weight bears down and one of them has to make a jump. To the soldier’s utter lack of surprise, Steve advances a brazen step and only then does Bucky notice the pink flush to his cheeks, the quickened breathing in anticipation.

Now would be the time to run, fleeing away from the promise keeping him awake at night. Tactile sorties fall under the Geneva Conventions against some kind of torture, assuredly, though the writers probably never considered Captain America giving an errant brush of his knuckles down the side as a proper weapon.

Bucky's skin burns under the shirt. Steve’s eyes are nearly lambent in the club’s low light, the decision graven on his almost somber features while reading the stamp of his best friend’s arresting profile, the shock dissipating into an obvious, almost shy longing. In the wake of surprise, repressed needs well up through cracks in his composure -- and that takes a toll.

So much for the flowers, but they are nothing if not a scattering of petals ahead of Steve, ancient sacrifice and fanfare. Closing the distance is easy enough, the waltz something executed by a tug on the flesh arm, lifting, turning Bucky to him. Insistence rather than aggression guides that touch. "Leave it."

Bucky is pulled back upright, leaving the bowl in a clatter of brass and enamel, putting a boot in the scattering of flowers. The scents are light, sharp, a contrast floating above the headiness of the mulled wine.

Over their long friendship, certain things never need to be asked, others given permission. The perfect trust formed in the shadow of the Ardennes in a damp foxhole or the soaring heights of the Alps endures, an inevitable surrender to that rare harmony of two people together. So he's moved easily, yielding with it against any torque of the arm or wrist. No protest about the mess follows, the soundless contemplation softening his expression. He looks into Steve's face, the pupils already dilated beyond the excuse of half-light. Expression grave, though it does nothing to hide that candle-glow of uncertainty edged with lust.

The protest, if any protest is coming, the blond partly anticipates. "It can stay where it is." He slowly raises his hand to creep up down to clasp Bucky’s fingers, resting there. "We never did decide on those drinks, did we?"

Not quite a smile, the way his lips part tells everything. Already more than a little bit dazzled, Bucky’s posture relaxes just a fraction. Still poised attendant on whatever Steve's whim might be, he forces himself to take a steady breath, pulse beating in his wrist against those fingers. A mute shake of his head at the question -- a side-effect of Steve's close presence, just how quickly words escape him.

Dazzled, but not entirely awed or incapable of functioning. Fragments and scattered debris of rational thought are pushed aside as easily as the crockery smashed among the dried flowers. Steve bows his head, the better to press his face briefly into the offered crook of Bucky’s neck. The ruffle of warm breath completely disarms the bartender, his skin trembling like a fly-stung horse.

Steve’s arm slides up, bracketing Bucky's shoulder, a loose embrace at best. "What are you waiting for? If you want to do this, get up there."

 _This can’t be happening._ Disbelief and exhilaration act as a heady combination in the veins, leaving him briefly lightheaded. Bucky has only the least idea of what follows complying with the whispered suggestion, but he refuses to look a gift horse in the mouth. Captain America says throw yourself off a building and he’ll jump, though hoisting himself up is considerably more daunting than facing down a phalanx of AIM scientists or entrenched Soviet infantry.

He hitches himself up to sit on the inner counter, like a child in a too tall chair. Booted feet dangle, back against the outer lip of the bar, as if it were the back of said chair. There's always a choice, always a chance to say no. Never an order, and always a question. Rope enough to hang himself and third time's the charm. That's the old saying, you can't know what you like unless you've tried it three times.

All hail Thor Odinson for a hell of an introduction to his sexuality, so he can attempt to feel vaguely competent facing this unspoken check on the bucket list. He’ll have to worry later about finding an appropriate gift to show his gratitude.

Steve has all the patience in the world, a smile touching his mouth that attests to a certain satisfaction and loosening tension. His and Nat’s little secret gives a profound burst of confidence in the face of unfamiliarity. A bit of practice in the rarefied art of seduction with the Black Widow makes his pursuit comfortable, if not familiar. He waits for Bucky to settle before approaching him, fingers skimming in a stroke across the bar. Granite and marble countertops polished to a fiendish mirror glow. Bucky could very easily slide right off with some momentum behind him.

"Good start," he murmurs, voice radiating its own eager promise.

Bucky quirks a brow, some of his natural cockiness emerging from the stunned wonder otherwise suppressing those instinctive reactions. His heel bumps against the inner wall, hardly creating a muffled thud. “You feel like sharing your ideas?”

The complicated answer comes when Steve smiles, another small offering, and shakes his head just a bit. But truths lie in the eyes, warm summer sky blue, sparkling with promise and a hint of desire projected without need for words. He pulls in a breath. "Lie back, please? Here."

Easy enough to strip the t-shirt and fold it three times, sleeves angled and tucked in, the better to buffer against any discomfort on the rounded, supple curve of the counter. He lays it flat, a pillow of sorts. "You won't be going anywhere. Figure you might get comfortable. Don't worry about your soles on the marble. A little dirt never hurt anyone. I’ll clean it up after."

He doesn’t trust himself to conjure a reply. Lie back Bucky does, letting the cool marble of the outer bar bear up shoulders both metal and flesh. The heaving of his ribs is clear, as are the lines of belly and hip. The arching posture pulls the shirt from the denim waistband, baring a little stretch of his fair skin, the point of a hip. Fingers hook on the lip of the bar, holding him in place, lest balance shift and gravity bear him right over backwards.

Smooth and glassy as the stone finish is, slipping right over the edge to land in a heap of metal and tangled flesh limbs may be a very real threat. The blond soldier glides a step nearer, forestalling the probable creep by resting a palm against Bucky's shoulder, his touch near reverent in the tremendous restrained strength behind it. Slowly those crystal blue eyes trek across the warm, uplifted lineaments of his body, the Soviet response for perfection in likeness of God. Certain tangible weight follows the descent of the inspection past his sternum, descending to the dip of the navel.

“You’re warm,” Bucky mutters. He flushes hotter, the thick timbre of his voice a travesty for showing any kind of cool. But soon enough it won’t matter anymore.

Steve passes in a whisper of those exotic resins as he blows out the candle in the Turkish lantern, a precaution just in case. The hotplate turned off adds to the safety measures, doing away with anything that might interrupt them. Always the pragmatist, caring about such things. Bucky would laugh if he could, though he shuts his eyes. Given a clear signal, the taller blond wordlessly reaches down to summarily destroy sartorial defenses, sweeping away buttons and zippers in a conventional assault by opening Bucky's pants. Inwards, long fingers slip to teach the value of patience, curling like ferns around the warm shaft secreted out of sight, stretching out to brush his palm lower, to cup and to hold.

Some designer made an effort, mirroring the lines of flesh in metal in Bucky’s arm. He wasn't left some knuckle-dragging distortion, cobbled together out of junkyard parts and brute force engineering. The rest of him is precisely tuned and wickedly responsive. A gasp held in his throat for a beat, he rises to the welcome touch, releasing a shivering breath with his eyes closed, lashes dark against his cheek. Already rousing, each beat of the pulse leaving him stiffer, warmer, within that hand. Adding to the mix, the sound of metal grates on marble, that hand tightening its grip.

Patience rules the blond’s focused exploration, his cautious attentions concentrated with laser focus. Slow in his ministrations, he approaches Bucky as the matter of a Rachmaninoff piece -- fiendishly difficult, requiring the fullest of concentration to manage the fingerwork in the proper tempo. Light taps dapple around the heavy jewels up to the root of his cock, delving in a slow, revolving knead abrading hardening flesh. Every contour of his palm imprinted upon the arching soldier intends to build up the tempo, bit by bit, while the hand at Bucky's shoulder departs to tease down the front of the t-shirt.

Fear used to accompany such intimacy. No longer. Bucky thinks only of Steve’s hands and his expression behind his closed eyes, rather than the haunting nightmares tormented by faceless drones in lab coats, torturers disguised as scientists. Scalpels, needles, electrodes and gauges, like a practice dummy for a dozen apprentice Frankensteins. Other than the uneasy rock of his hips, he settles back with a slinking, shuddering gasp.

A pinch to one nipple plays on prior knowledge acquired at the highest price. The other will have to go without Steve’s sustained attentions. Through cotton the pressure is somewhat abated, but not for long. Away moves that touch, for the space of about a minute. In his murky bliss,

Bucky hears a metallic clatter and the tap of liquid at a distance, resolved into something quiet. Cinnamon and clove lace the air in a heady, bracing wave over the cooling Turkish candle throwing off resinous base notes. The heat is be a surprise when contacting his skin, one fat drop landing on his groin. The next follows, straight down, and then a third, a fourth, dribbled straight down to his erect cock. _Wax?_

No.

_Oil?_

Too thin.

 _Wine_. Bucky about chokes on his tongue putting together the obvious facts his senses relay to a thoroughly foggy brain. He has always been the impulsive and reactive one, Steve the expert in tactics. Whatever inspired him to exchange roles will be celebrated thoroughly and fully in nights to come when he strokes himself off, imagining just this sensation of wetness and tightening skin and a throaty groan suppressed with some difficulty.

The temperature play all but makes him yelp in surprise, a jerk of booted feet comical as a puppet's. But it's not pain or anything like it, and it leaves him breathing hard, attending to the sensation. Another new strangeness, there've been so many of them in the past couple of months that he doesn’t fight the friction. Better to let the novelty of experience carry him along.

A low chuckle answers the yelp, mingled among the surprise in a threnody of tenor timbre. Another few spatters of wine steal among pale fingers to join skin flushed closer to the burgundy's natural shade. Beads drip down, cooling as they go, another sensation to counter the inherent heat. In their wake, Bucky is left with a certain stickiness absent from oil or lube, for that matter.

The stroking resumes again, slow and ever so steady, wrist twisted to push the corona through clenched fingers with a decadent pop. He doesn’t hurry along with jacking Bucky off, luxuriating in the silken hardness that fills his palm perfectly. Once he sets aside the cinnamon stick beside the simmering wine, Steve's next gambit is the simple one. He reveals the rugged corrugations under Bucky’s t-shirt, hauling it higher until snagged, but not off. A bare stretch of skin, left to cool without its wrappings. "I've wanted to do this to you for ages. Since you came back from Wakanda."

Hard to imagine how much has changed since then. Close to three quarters of a year, the start of high summer and the end of May, and Bucky returned to the world wearing battered combat boots, a decent suit and a surprising flicker of calm that hid nothing at all of his sins. Goosebumps arise in obedient thrall to that baring of skin, a chill more psychological than physical. "You did?" The tightness of his voice only makes it sound the younger, the boy who went off to war, leaving Steve behind, waiting his transformation like the most impatient caterpillar.

When gauging Bucky to be appropriately up to a slow boil but not a full, raging tumble, the soldier's machinations simply end. One firm squeeze below the flaring crown intends to leave a bead of wetness poised diamond-bright on the plum head, all the better to ruffle with a stream of breath. "You think I’m dead inside? God, you’re perfect."

The thickened darkness of need plays on Steve’s voice, harmonics that he simply does not possess in public or anywhere outside a bedroom for that matter, rolling across the barrel-vaulted ceiling enclosing the bar. Bucky's outer leg is pulled slightly wider, pressed to tilt his knee outward rather than aloft to the sky. Such positioning further drops barriers to being found out, if someone were to walk in and behold a revelation on the stone altar.

Shadows slant where Steve goes, retreating back to deal with his own trousers, quick and efficient. A deliberate choice, he stands just outside the periphery of vision, if Bucky opens his eyes. Admiring the view for a few moments longer than strictly comfortable, he returns so much like the tide, hushed and advancing faster than most would credit while anticipation ebbs and simmers. This time both hands delve into that wealth of dark hair pillowed against the folded shirt, kneading and caressing along the scalp, in effect gathering up the strands to tumble free like a pennant over the edge of the bar.

“Yes. God, more.” The sensation of fingers coiling possessively in his hair is oddly intimate and tender in the same token, throwing a golden spear of pure pleasure straight to the core. His hardened cock throbs, eager for attention, but Bucky doesn’t remove a hand from clutching the bar.

An odd position, on both the physical and mental fronts, then. Cool marble rather than cold steel, no restraints other than whatever drives him to lie down before the soldier, so very willing. But he's almost relaxed during that pause, after a grunt at that last squeeze, muscles of his belly going taut, curling him up a little from his splayed arch. "I'd wondered," he says, simply, sighing at that caress, tame as a pet.

Air moves in subtle currents, eddying in a confused swirl, stirred up. Steve changes his position, moving away from the side of the counter to the end so he stands at Bucky’s head. His hands slide deep through the thicket of dark hair, curling to knead at the scalp. The firm massage lasts for as long as it takes for calm to settle, evaporating the lingering remnants of anticipatory eagerness.

Only then does Steve reach down for Bucky’s shoulders and demonstrates the benefit of glass-smooth surfaces. Though lateral travel covers two inches at best, he pulls the man’s whole body towards him. The cushioning shirt he sacrificed as a pillow against hard stone slips right along to the rounded-off edge, placing Bucky’s head at the point of tipping back unsupported.  
  
He stares for a lot longer than he should thanks to the added benefit of Bucky’s t-shirt hitching higher, leaving nothing between his washboard abdomen descending to his mouth-watering cock.

"Tilt your head back," he asks, not quite demanding. "Do you wanna stop?"

Lie back Bucky does, obediently. "Not now," he says. Not shivering at the sensation of being left lying mostly bare and on display, even if only for Steve’s eyes, he molds himself against the cool stone. Used to this kind of treatment, now, if for far more sinister purposes, though there's much less temptation to withdraw into that utter passivity, letting pain and shock run through and be gone, become something happening to a body he's not really inhabiting. There's that curling little smile, dreaming.

For that reason alone, the blond needs a few moments. Maybe a few lifetimes to process the way Bucky bites his lower lip and tugs on the feline curve, inviting the most wicked of notions that do not belong in a good friend’s thoughts. Steve covets that mouth for terrible things.

Stroking himself in hand is hardly necessary, but two or three long caresses brings a focused intensity to his blazing, shadow-inked gaze. Intimate fingers slip along Bucky's chin, slipping underneath, coaxing higher. However dreamy that smile, it's a bullseye for whatever thoughts bestir torpid action out of the soldier.

"Speak up if anything changes?" Cold to ask the question when a willing reception would stifle the supine man, since it's only a tilt of the head and parted lips separating him from the plump, flush bell-end of Steve’s cock sliding through a firmly gripped fist. Doubled strokes flex along his bared shaft, preparations paying off he releases a long, strangled sigh of need. A hand pressed to the bar supports the blond soldier, but his focus lies wholly on teasing strokes that paint Bucky's mouth with a blunt brush.

"If I can," he says, with a huff of laughter. Then there's no more speech. Just willing submersion, lips parted, head tilted to take what's offered. Not even intoxication acts as excuse -- he’s sucking the most perfect cock, idealized along with everything else by Erskine’s serum, just a bit too large and full, exactly the way he wants it. Eyes closed, the better to focus on sensation, oddly helps Bucky keep his balance. Mentally and physically. His hair sways under him as he tips his chin, trying to line up to the offered length buried deeper by the second. A new angle on sex awakens that flush of arousal more in evidence, in the coppery light.

Slow and steady wins the race if one is, say, a tortoise. Steve is not restricted to that fable, the initial plunge haring into the superheated confines of that willing mouth. Air escapes him in something equivalent to a sigh, and he carefully rocks his hips to find a suitable alignment that won't sacrifice Bucky's ability to breathe. Shallow, short withdrawals flirt with velvet tongue and curving lips, dragging at the inevitable suction bound to build up around the angle. Time isn't an ally, though, patience kindled to hot sparks when his fingertips strum along an unprotected nipple, tweaking right through the shirt and eventually pulling the barrier out of the way to squeeze in steady, erratic tugs.

Hard as a bead already, Bucky’s nipple turns painfully tight after those pianist's fingertips are toying with it. Already one of those spots designed to light up his nervous system like a busy switchboard and Steve jams the system within moments. There's that strangled sound of pleasure, the shift of metal on stone -- marble's harder than brick, at least. Maybe he won't mar the bartop. Much.

If that were it alone, the situation might be titillating, but hardly thrilling. Not nearly sufficient to reward the most stalwart of friends for bravery and love. He uses his formidable height for proper advantage, leaning forward while the span of his back arches to maintain some kind of balance. One by one his fingers waltz up Bucky’s side in a caress, tickling him, and it's a perfectly acceptable distraction to -- oh, right, _that_.

A viper strike and he latches his lips around the end of the intense arousal, sucking it like a preschooler on a cake pop, intending to melt away the hard shell of frosting and sprinkles for the sweet dessert underneath.

The tickle of fingertips has Bucky stifling laughter, belly hollowing for moments. Working the angle he has leaves him spread for Steve's pleasure, legs lolling wide, only to jolt in startlement at the unexpected reciprocity. That certainly changes things, takes it from a pleasure he's trying to grant as best he can to something far less under his control. Hips lifting, arching against the curve of stone against his lower back, unable to moan as he might want. Sucking and the thrusting into his mouth brings little stutters of distraction into his efforts to envelop that ivory length of Steve’s cock-- less sucking than riding out being fucked. Even a moment of kicking departs from focused efforts; planting a sole on the inner counter, he scrapes off one leg of the jeans, the better to let his hips go loose and flex out unbound by denim. There's no keeping up with Steve, but he's always so determined to try.

War on three fronts is usually a fool's gambit. Ask the Axis powers. The regular rhythm of Steve's hips begins in synchronization with how fast Bucky chooses to go, a silent acknowledgment of his essential vulnerability. The stutter and the moan goad a little faster motion from steady stroking, but not much else. Only at sparing moments when he's close to being overwhelmed will the blond soldier pause, timing exactly how long to stay until oxygen scarcity adds another dynamic. Nothing quite like walking that edge, though it's built up to, likely such that Bucky can anticipate the flurry of minute thrusts teasing the back of his throat before withdrawing fully.

Prayer blossoms into the night, at least in the sense of mute, incendiary desire. Bucky’s mind is suffused with naught but desire, delight, the will to please. It doesn't add up to love _exactl_ , not the sum of those parts, but nothing so cold and distant as worship. This is different kind of passion, strange and wild and unfamiliar, an offering on an altar to Steve. No one else shall take his place. Let the reverent blond bent over him have him.

The serum’s improvements to stamina provides other dividends: long, slow descents to swallow the Bucky’s cock whole, and bottoming out once he has to spare a hand for tugging the jeans away. If motion is what he wants, it's exactly what he gets. Steve swallows and sucks, no attempt to stifle his efforts whatsoever. Perfect acoustics are an odd blend, really.

Being nearly stifled only hones that edge. There's the drum and clutch of fingertips, the scrape of metal on the underside of the bar. No one will see, if he doesn't shatter an edge. Climax lashes through him like a whipcrack, harder, more sudden than is his wont, the saline spill abrupt as the muscles of tongue and throat tighten around Steve’s shaft, choking him further.

The sudden onset might just take Steve briefly by surprise, but his throat muscles work in perfect choreography with his fingertips dancing along the threshold of Bucky's nipple, dragging up almost to the point of pain. The nub takes the brunt of rougher attention, whilst blond hair teases against his inner thigh and lips skate up and down the great vein of his length, beckoning _more_. What offerings of manna are provided, greed and abhorrence of waste ensure Steve swallows.

A slight dream-lit diversion requires preoccupied answer, but his cock continues gliding into Bucky's mouth with slower, brutal forthrightness -- bottoming out, holding there through the climax, and dragging back reluctantly. Never to lie, his admission of the teetering closeness comes in a mineral trace and teeth bluntly scoring up oversensitized flesh just firmly enough to tingle. His tongue adds to the duet thereafter, scouring all traces of climax away, chasing the taut brunet to a second cum-drenched peak while his own teeters right along in waiting. He's probably the sort of benevolent saint who won't cease moving until Bucky is damn near writhing in anticipation for release.

A wordless blasphemy lies on the lips wrapped around the girth of Steve’s shaft, for all he can barely bring himself to utter a sound. The fact he’s nearly choking on the length drilling into his throat and drawing back spatters Bucky’s vision with stars as he lies supine on the counter. And this, in its odd way, is heaven. Still working gamely with what movement he can, his tongue laps at the curve of the crown when Steve withdraws, gulping for air when he can. Utterly forgetful of where he is, as if it were perfectly reasonable to find himself sprawled beneath his best friend, he is a vision -- stripped and spent.

Such raptures rattle the blond soldier bent over Bucky, subsiding in his more desultory actions. Free hand used to support himself slides away, straight up through the converging vee of Bucky's legs, and those fingers wrap around his shaft for a steady tempo that needs no real urgent speed to complement the regular bobbing of Steve's head. He goes deep and mostly stays that way, tongue chaperoning the swallow on the way up and pulling back to allow for longer strokes constricting the midpoint of the shaft.

He can't really soften, relax, with that demanding mouth on him, that hand. No sinking into the afterglow, and it's another layer of torment, accepted willingly. The second peak makes no physical offering, just the trembling spasm of minute muscles trying to do what they were programmed to.

Arching his hips to the willing mouth, it isn't long before the curled tongue washes away what restraint ever remained. Harder, the ramp up for his own climax is laser-focused, restlessly direct. Thankfully the t-shirt is some solace, and the vague understanding in his mind _not_ to just let go and claim Bucky’s warm mouth and tight throat right there. He's not going to last, finally sinking away into the blissful heat with a demanding, tyrannical march for the sea.

Steve will find himself drunk down eagerly, the half-drowned soldier beneath him swallowing every last drop of salt-mineral cum splattered in his mouth and down his throat. No sound from him escapes, no way to muster air or control over vocal cords, beyond a gasp now and again.

It's not the evening to speculate how long a super-soldier can normally go -- when there aren't fatigue toxins and recovery rates are accelerated, their refractory rates are patently unfair. Steve staggers at the contraction of Bucky’s lips around his sensitive shaft, unable to contrive any sense of going forward or back. Lost in the moment, he staggers to the seizure of the senses, whitefire aglow in the veins and combusting with the liquid heat coating him in moon-silver. His knee driven into the bar sets the marble humming, glass chattering, and finally, finally those lips pull away from Bucky in time for him to straighten a little. After the final spasms of warm, slick ropes taper off, he almost collapses atop the brunet laid out beneath him. Disengaging is a necessary cruelty as he slides his hips back, trying to give Bucky freedom to breathe and recover from mercurial bliss.

They’ll talk about that business of pulling out too soon after climaxing, later. For the meantime, only staggered satisfaction remains.

Events grind forth in that very order. Rasping breath like he's barely escaped being choked out sounds terribly labored and harsh, but not pained. Shoulders and arms tense as he pulls himself a little forward, the better to keep from tipping headfirst right off the bar and sliding into a heap on the floor.

Thinking… it takes a little. Steve can see the pale eyes refocus on the texturing on the ceiling, thoughts rolling together to coalesce like beads of mercury, experience being filed away for future reference. Thought, but not yet genuine comprehension. He did what with his best friend where? Sense enough remains not to try and curl himself back up until he's hooked his heels tight beneath the inner counter, sitting up and pulling his shirt down, covering the line of the graft. Then he's got one boot on the floor, not quite staggering, as he reassembles boxers and jeans, the long hair still in disarray. No comment on it, thus far.

Pulling up Bucky to be upright is well within Steve's ability, but he won’t interfere, only stretching out a stabilizing hand if wanted.Raking fingers through hair decidedly more pale gold than faded flax or deeply burnished, the gesture is one purely equivalent to a bird shaking its feathers out. He struggles to recover himself, and get back to some measure of composure as necessary.

Who speaks first? He starts to blush again, even with the clean tang of Bucky’s cum on his lips and tongue.

Bucky’s trying to be cool: he's pulling his hair back with one of those ties from his pocket. Then he turns to face Steve, not smiling, but dreamy again. Whole body still resounding to that chord, but he's upright and not bowlegged. He has eyes only for Steve. Something fey there - not fear, but a waiting expectation.... and almost confidence. Each of those choices, however absurd they may seem, is its little bolster to his own wants, his own will. His handlers might never believe the truth of that encounter, but the marks he sets on himself won't fade.

“Buck…” The words break off from the ice sheet of emotions compressed too tightly together. Steve grapples with his t-shirt, shaking it out, too busy wringing the neck to advance very far.

The grin he receives is dream and certain in a blithe way it hasn’t been in a very long time indeed, so impossibly warm. “I know.” Two words completely silence Steve Rogers, the man who never lacks for inspiring speeches or a kind gesture. Bucky asks, “Breakfast?”

Steve coughs, leaning hard on the counter. He pulls on the shirt fast as he can without tearing it, yanking up the zipper on his jeans and setting everything to rights. “Your place?”

Bucky nods, throwing a look back over his shoulder as he comes around the bar. “And maybe another drink after. I think I might get a taste for it.”


End file.
